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"The original rationale in Ireland was that it would cut down on welfare fraud (popular amongst centre with voters)"

The amusing thing about that old saw is that usually XYZ country spends umpteen millions to implement a system to cut welfare fraud estimated at "umpteen * N", only to find that _actual_ welfare fraud is "some small fraction of umpteen" and that the vast majority of it is being perpetrated by welfare department staff (also that such frauds should have been trivially detectable using the pre-existing systems - picking up things like payments for different identities going to the same bank account. Crooks aren't usually smart)

Once that gets discovered they have to start finding other ways to justify the system's existence (ie, a solution looking for a problem)

On a similar note, areas which introduced mandatory drug testing of welfare recipients discovered that they were spending a hell of a lot of money to find one or two cases per year. It shouldn't be a surprise that people on welfare can't afford (illegal) recreational drugs and those who do partake when they can't afford tend to be quite obvious.